July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
War-date Union Soldier Autograph Letter Signed by John Shrady, 2nd Tennessee Infantry surgeon, 3pp. octavo Camp near Somerset, Kentucky, May 22, 1863, and reads in part: "…The 'Cincinnati Commercial' reaches camp pretty regularly and by it, I learn that Fernando Wood as of course everybody expected is sowing the seeds of treason broadcast over the land. Did you ever know of a more thorough villain?...I tell you, Darling, that since I have been out & seen the workings of these demagogues, I have been heartily ashamed that I ever voted the Democratic ticket. I promise you that I shall never be guilty of the egregious folly again, all the treason seems to be hatched in that party, which to say the least is very suspicious. So if any one accuses me of being a Democrat in your presence you may deny the charge by authority - ever after this, I shall act against it. You may have read in the papers some years ago of the sudden deaths of a Mrs. Blankman, about the region of 34th Street & Broadway. A postmortem examination was held as suspicious of poison were rife, but the verdict t was death from apoplexy. Great prominence was giving to the case from the fact that the woman was the notorious prostitute Fanny White, an early associate of Mrs. Cunningham. With 'the wages of sin' she purchased a fine mansion in that portion of the city and married a young lawyer, who for gold sacrificed reputation & shut himself out of decent society. By natural laws this man gravitates to Fernando Wood as is show by the enclosed clipping [not present] form the 'Commercial' in part a report of the proceedings of a New York Copperhead meeting. Don't you think that the man who was capable of the one act would be of the other?...I have seen so much to satisfy me even in the limited field of our operations in Kentucky, of the devilish character of this rebellion, that I almost blush to count the rebels as having been born upon the soil of America. How like barbarians are the enemy - worse than Indians!!..." Fine. The 2nd Tennessee Infantry, had 475 of its men captured at Rogersville, Tennessee and sent to Andersonville Prison. The 2nd and two New York regiments had the highest mortality rate at that notorious prison.
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